7:00 a.m. I woke up in the tent. Did some writing. Then I went to work.
I arrived at work at 8:45 am. After getting my equipment ready I went over to the church homeless day shelter and I engaged with Matt who is looking for treatment and David who needs help with housing and finding copies of his IDs from some of the shelters he has stayed at in the past. Suddenly the homeless police Officer called me. He was outside across the street from the homeless day shelter engaging with Rollin and his mother Louis who are both homeless and living in their vehicle. Louise had been evicted from her housing in Andover because she allowed her son to live there with her which is against the housing rules. Louise’s son Rollin told me that he doesn’t use drugs and is in recovery. While I stood there with the homeless officer, I couldn’t say anything, but it was obvious that Rollin was high on fentanyl. Louise had good housing in a wealthy town, she allowed her son to stay with her and was kicked out of her housing because of it. And now they both had nowhere to live. This is a very difficult situation considering that Louise will not accept anything other than a new government assisted housing opportunity. Because of her son, who took no consideration of his elderly mother, they now live in an SUV that’s just packed with their stuff. Once you’re evicted out of government subsidized housing, it could take up to 10 years to get back into a place. I got Rollin’s number, and I will see if I can find options for them. Louise refused a rooming house, shelter, or anything that was not big enough for her and her son and all their stuff.
At 10:00 a.m. I went to a community provider meeting with all the local homeless services providers at the harm reduction facility near the faith-based homeless day center. After that meeting I engaged in a team meeting with The homeless police officer and the rest of the harm reduction team. We discussed the situation of the various homeless people living in the city I work in. We all received a hand out that has all the arrest pictures of people that are homeless and were arrested in the city. There were about 200 people on the document. And we went over each and every person.
At 11:30 a.m. I returned back to the shelter, had lunch and then I went back to the homeless day shelter to give Sanchez his birth certificate, which I was holding on to for safekeeping, but Sanchez was not there. I had also made a copy of his birth certificate at the shelter for my own files. I was looking for Matt, since Mitchell from The local treatment center wanted to get him into a detox bed today. I did not see Matt, he left the homeless day Center. I tried to track down a copy of David ID at a shelter in a neighboring city, the director Isaiah said that they had no more files on him since he’d been there so long ago.
2:00 p.m. I returned back to the shelter and received a piece of mail that was a champ application for David, this is an application for housing through one of the housing authorities. I called David and he came to the shelter and I helped him fill out the application. David could not remember a lot of the key information that needs to go on this form. Especially places you’ve lived before and landlord’s names, so it seems that I will not be able to assist him in filling out that application until he can gain the necessary information to apply for housing in Georgetown.
At 3:00 p.m. Mitchell from the local drug treatment center called and told me that he had a bed for Matt. I took Michael, one of the shelter workers, with me out into the streets and we searched for Matt. We went to the homeless day shelter where I engaged Jose who is interested in going into treatment tomorrow. We went to McDonald’s. Then we went over to the e-market and as we were driving towards West Street Park we saw Matt and his girlfriend. Matt declined treatment today but said he would be interested in going tomorrow. I will follow up with him at the homeless day shelter at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.
At 4:00 p.m. Michael and myself arrived back at the shelter. I finished up paperwork and I left work around 5:00 p.m.
I left work and I drove back to my tent where I settled in and just relaxed for the rest of the night and went to bed around 9:00 p.m.